/ world today news/ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky returned to Washington earlier this week, begging for more money and weapons. President Joe Biden offered his typical assurances of support, but Zelensky’s reception was otherwise different than in the past.
At first he was widely revered in the US and Europe; politicians couldn’t wait to be photographed shaking his hand. Fast forward through shattered predictions of victory, endless expensive subsidies, bloody failed counter-attacks and mass Ukrainian casualties.
Increasing burdens on allies, combined with diminishing prospects for Kiev, have eroded support for Zelensky on both sides of the Atlantic.
Support for Ukraine is no longer a guaranteed crowd pleaser. Instead, American and European officials focused more on their own peoples and the importance of ending the conflict.
For example, before Zelensky arrived, Republican Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio was blunt: Kiev will have to negotiate and probably lose territory. Accepting that outcome is in “America’s best interest,” he explained.
Such sentiments still cause weeping, gnashing of teeth and tearing of clothes on a biblical scale among Ukraine’s high-ranking defenders. However, more and more members of the foreign policy establishment recognize that Vance is right, even if they do not publicly acknowledge the reality.
Washington’s influential Kiev lobby is running out of options. Plans to disable the Russian economy failed. Hopes of overthrowing Russian President Vladimir Putin, democratizing Russia, and even breaking up the Russian Federation have turned out to be even more fantastical.
Demands that China abandon its partner were ignored. The drive for global support against Moscow has crashed and burned amid the West’s many hypocrisies, including support for Israel’s oppressive occupation and indifference to the mass civilian casualties in Gaza.
Hysterical warnings that a victorious Russia would conquer Europe and perhaps the rest of the known world failed to rouse a public belied by Moscow’s difficulty in defeating Ukraine.
Strange attempts to sell military aid to Kiev as a job creation program for Americans have failed miserably. After all, almost any spending on anything else in the US would provide a bigger economic boost than sending bombs to Europe
Now the Ukrainians are warning that if the Americans do not agree to write checks and risk the lives of soldiers for Kiev, the Ukrainians will not like us. They may turn against us. And who knows what might happen then. For example, Dennis Karlowski of the Royal United Services Institute warned:
The seeming failure of the Western allies to protect Ukraine from a second brutal war is likely to leave Ukraine’s population feeling resentful and spent in the name of the “great powers”, just as the 1994 Budapest memorandum is perceived by Ukrainians today.
The task for NATO policymakers is to avoid the rise of public sentiment in post-war Ukraine as anti-Western or, worse, isolationist. They should build a mutually beneficial security cooperation framework with the government of Ukraine and maintain current levels of Ukrainian public support for NATO and the EU.
As offensive as it is, it’s a really stupid threat. Ukrainians may become “isolationists”? Does this mean they will stop asking for financial aid, military support and security guarantees?
This sounds a lot like Ukraine’s position before the allies backed the 2014 street coup against Yanukovych’s government. The Ukrainians did not ask for anything special from Washington. The country looked east and west economically, held elections that turned East and West, and avoided military engagements in east and west.
Corruption was rampant and politics was ruthless, but refusing to tie themselves to America or Russia, Ukrainians lived peacefully in a united country. This seems almost utopian compared to today.
Peace was also good for the Allies. The reason NATO never acted on Bucharest’s ill-advised 2008 pledge to join the alliance is that no one believed Ukraine was worth fighting for: a position evident even when Russia invaded.
The Ukrainians continue to ask for an invitation to join the alliance, which the US and Europeans continue to refuse. The European Leadership Network recently surveyed Ukraine’s desire – or rather demand – for firm security commitments from the US and Europe.
NATO membership was preferred, but other options were considered. However, anything would be dangerous for the West. For example, the “Japan and South Korea models” or the “Israel model”, if strictly implemented, would impose potentially significant military burdens on the US.
Karlovsky also postulates an “anti-Western” Ukraine. This would be an ironic response after receiving significant financial and military support against Moscow. However, while hostility to the West would be unfortunate, this possibility is no reason for the Allies to offer a defense commitment.
Certainly a defeated Kiev is unlikely to partner with Russia and attack the rest of Europe. Resentful Ukrainians could turn economically. However, even if greater integration with Russia were possible, the violent antagonisms unleashed by years of brutal war would persist.
Europe will remain the most likely source of aid, investment and trade for Ukraine. Indeed, Kiev is likely to be just as dependent on the West after the end of the conflict as it was during the fighting, whatever Ukrainians may think of allied policy.
However, Zelensky has explicitly threatened Europe with dire consequences if it reduces support for his government. The Ukrainian refugees there have so far “behaved well,” he conceded. However, cutting aid could “back these people into a corner”.
Paraphrasing the Economist, he warned that stopping the gravy train “will create risks for the West in its own backyard. There is no way to predict how the millions of Ukrainian refugees in European countries will react when their country is abandoned.
Does it suggest that those who depend on Europe for refuge – meaning safety and support – would threaten their status, say, by rioting across the continent? There will likely be little tolerance for such behavior.
After all, declining government aid to Ukraine reflects declining public support for Ukraine. Countries like Hungary, Poland and Slovakia already put the economic well-being of their own citizens ahead of that of Ukrainians.
Populism is once again on the rise across Europe, with immigration perhaps the leading issue. The welcome mat for Ukrainian refugees could be quickly removed.
Zelensky’s strange threat against those whose help he seeks is another reason why the US and its allies base Ukrainian policy on their own interests. When your friends threaten you, they are not your friends.
This is also not the first such wake-up call for the Allies. Last year, Zelensky tried to trick NATO into going to war with Russia based on a Ukrainian missile strike against Poland. The American and Polish governments knew the missile was coming from Ukraine.
Zelensky certainly did the same. His desire to draw the US into the conflict was predictable, even understandable, but it underscored the need to apply Ronald Reagan’s famous “trust but verify” maxim against both Kiev and Moscow.
It is time for Washington, with or without its European allies, to start pushing for an end to the war. This requires negotiation. The likely result, Vance noted, would be Ukrainian concessions. The latter will almost certainly involve some loss of territory and a form of committed military neutrality.
It is not Washington’s turn to force a deal on Kiev, a process that would undoubtedly generate massive resentment. Rather, the US and Europe should inform Zelensky of the limitations of Western aid and the resulting need for an end to the fighting.
Allies must confirm to Moscow their willingness to accept Ukrainian neutrality, restore Russian funds and reintegrate Russia as part of a reasonable settlement.
Having obstructed peace talks at every turn, such a process would not be easy for the US, Europe or the belligerents. But more years of conflict, in which Kiev suffers an ever-increasing disadvantage, will be worse.
The war between Ukraine and Russia is a tragedy, a crime committed by Russia, but only after allies recklessly ignored Moscow’s often-expressed security interests.
Zelensky’s visit did not save Kiev’s fortunes, nor Ukrainian threats against those who have spent nearly two years supporting Ukraine’s war effort. Allies must turn from fueling conflict to promoting peace.
Translation: SM
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